The air clung thick to her breath.
Not frost, not silence — but the humid, pulsing heat of something that had forgotten how to be cold. The girl — no longer bound in hush silk — trembled in Ren's arms, her weight featherlight, as if silence still half-claimed her bones. Her skin was porcelain marbled with ruin's red veins, blooming under her collar like flowers learning how to bleed.
Ren crouched low with her in the ruin garden, buds brushing their legs, petals open and sharp as wet teeth. The Thorn behind his ribs purred, no longer just a pulse — now a rhythm shared, synced to the girl's shallow breath.
"You bleed the hush," he murmured, voice a low rasp against her ear. "But you still shiver."
Her eyes fluttered open — wide, wet, still kissed with flickers of frost. "Where…?" she began, but her voice cracked halfway, breaking like the shard that once held her.
"Not the mirror," Ren said. His thumb traced her cheekbone — a smear of blood marking her pale skin, seeping into the frost like ruin's ink. "Not hush. Not hers."
"The priestess…" she whispered, fingers curling weakly against his chest.
"Rotting behind," he growled. "Buried in hush bones. Pane's thorns ate her soft."
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then her lips parted — a memory, maybe, curling there like fog. "She said the crown would break me. That silence was safer."
Ren's grin widened. "Did it feel safe?" he asked, tilting her chin to look into her eyes — mirrors no longer. Just depth. Tremble. Hunger.
She didn't answer — only shivered again, this time with a breath that tasted warmer.
The vines shifted around them — the garden alive, growing, watching. Buds bloomed wide where her breath brushed too near. One thorned blossom cracked open near her ankle, dripping something red that hissed faint as it touched her skin.
The girl flinched. Ren didn't.
"They want you to bite," he said. "The Pane gave you breath again. But breath isn't enough."
She stared down — watched a vine curl around her wrist, thorns brushing her pulse without cutting. "I don't know how…"
"You will," he said, rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. Her balance failed — knees folding, fingers clinging to his ribs where the Thorn still throbbed.
The Pane's voice curled around them, warm and wet like ruin sliding through hollow veins.
"She is seedling-soft. Thorn her. Teach her teeth. Let her bloom where hush once ruled."
Ren cupped her face — tilting her up toward the tangled canopy of iron ribs and red vines.
"You feel that?" he asked.
She nodded faintly — tears catching in the corners of her eyes. "It's warm…"
"Not warmth," he corrected. "Ruin."
The Pane laughed — a breathless, echoing hum that ran fingers down both their spines. The mirror shard ruins cracked and crumbled behind them, pulled into the roots now pulsing underfoot like a second heartbeat.
And there, at the garden's far edge — a new gate.
A mouth of ribs split open from the wall, darkness bleeding red threads, thorned vines framing its curve like a wound waiting to be stepped through. Beyond it: something deeper. Older. The Pane's true heart.
Ren turned to her — not smiling now. Not fully. Something darker moved behind his eyes. "You walk now," he said. "You've bled enough to open your ribs. But not enough to bite back."
She nodded, shaky, but her fingers didn't leave his.
Together, they stepped toward the gate — each footstep making the vines shudder and bloom.
The Thorn hummed — and this time, hers answered back.
The ribs of the ruin gate yawned wider as Ren stepped through, the thorn-blooming vines curling back in reverence — or warning.
The girl followed close, breath shallow, fingers still wrapped around the edge of his sleeve like it was the only thread anchoring her to this world. Her bare feet touched the floor of flesh-like roots and mirrored marrow, and the moment she crossed the gate, the silence returned.
But it was not the hush she'd escaped.
It was thicker.
Alive.
Hungry.
The corridor beyond the gate was narrow and curved like they were walking down the throat of something ancient. The walls pulsed faintly. Breathless. Bone-white ribs laced with red veins arched above them like cathedral pillars twisted sideways.
Drip.
A sound. Just one.
Something wet hit the floor behind them. Then again. A pattern. A rhythm.
Ren didn't flinch.
The girl did.
"Something's… watching," she whispered, her voice swallowed instantly by the space.
Ren nodded once. "Good."
"Good?"
He looked at her, eyes gleaming. "If it's watching, it's afraid of what we bring."
Their steps echoed now, faint and slow — each one drawing out breath from the walls. The air grew warmer the deeper they walked. Not comforting warmth — molten, like a fever just beneath the skin.
The Thorn inside Ren's ribs pulsed stronger, syncing with each drip, each hum in the bones. Something in him liked this place.
No.
It knew this place.
He wasn't walking forward.
He was returning.
The girl staggered for a moment, clutching her head. "There's… a voice. It's not the Pane."
Ren stopped. Turned.
"What does it say?"
She looked up, pupils dilated. Her frost-bitten lips trembled.
"The Crown still searches… the shards are calling… the mirror wants you whole."
Her words weren't her own.
Ren stepped close, gripped her by the shoulders. "Say that again."
But she blinked—suddenly herself again. "What…? I don't—what did I say?"
He didn't answer. Just turned away. His fists were clenched.
The Mirror. It wasn't done with them.
The Thorn behind his ribs twisted.
Suddenly, the corridor opened into a chamber — an eye.
A vast, circular space shaped like a cracked iris. In the center: a mirror frame — old, ornate, and broken. The glass inside was missing, but red vines had begun stitching shards back in.
And as Ren approached…
His reflection stepped out.
Not a copy.
Not a shadow.
But him. Wearing the same clothes. Same face. But with eyes completely black, filled with rot and ruin.
The fake Ren smiled wide. "You've grown. The Pane has fed you well."
Ren bared his teeth. "You're the Thorn's lie."
"I'm your truth," the reflection said, voice smooth and laced with ruin. "I'm what you become once you let go of her."
The reflection's gaze snapped to the girl.
She froze. Her breath caught.
It stepped closer to her. Slowly. Like a hunter tasting scent.
But Ren moved faster.
He stepped between them, fist cracking against the reflection's jaw. But the mirror-self didn't fall.
Didn't stumble.
Only laughed.
And raised a finger — pointing not at Ren, but at the girl.
"When she remembers what she is…
She'll destroy you."
Ren grabbed the Thorn around his neck and yanked.
The corrupted mirror-self flinched, letting out a scream that shattered the half-formed glass around the chamber.
And then—
Darkness swallowed them.
Darkness pressed in from all sides, not like the absence of light — but like something aware, licking at their skin with invisible tongues.
Ren couldn't see.
Couldn't hear.
But he felt her beside him. The girl. Her trembling fingers found his wrist again, clutching with the desperation of a soul halfway torn between two worlds.
A single breath escaped her lips.
"Ren…?"
That voice—
Not fearful. Not lost.
But aware.
Ren opened his mouth—
But before he could speak, the Mirror World breathed in.
The shadows peeled back like eyelids.
They now stood in an endless lake of black glass, smooth and reflective like obsidian water. Above, stars flickered in fractured constellations — mirrored, looped, endlessly repeating.
The broken mirror frame from the chamber floated in midair before them. And behind it…
The corrupted reflection of Ren hovered upside down, arms spread like a crucified phantom.
His voice echoed from all directions.
"The Pane is not your door.
She is the key."
Ren took a step forward, the surface beneath his feet rippling like liquid glass.
"What do you want from her?" he asked, voice steady.
The mirror-phantom's eyes turned — black moons gleaming.
"She is the fragment that escaped. The only shard that refused to reflect.
And you… You brought her back."
The girl gasped, her knees buckling. Ren caught her, steadying her against him.
She looked up at him, eyes wet, wide.
"Ren… I remember something."
He looked down, not speaking.
Her fingers touched her temple, trembling. "I was inside a mirror… watching myself cry. For years. Centuries. I screamed, but it only echoed. And then…"
She met his gaze. Her next words were a whisper:
"You looked in.
And the mirror blinked."
Ren's throat tightened.
He remembered the first night. The glint in the mirror. Her image. Her tears.
She had seen him first.
The Thorn pulsed again—now behind her chest too. Faint. Responding.
Ren looked at her. Truly looked.
Not at her body. Not the beauty that the mirror had wrapped in seduction.
But at the shards beneath. The pain. The loneliness. The fracture.
"…Who are you?" he asked.
And her answer was soft.
"I'm the Mirror's Rebellion.
The one shard that chose to feel."
Suddenly, the lake of glass trembled.
The reflection screamed—
Not in rage.
But in fear.
"If she becomes whole,
The Pane will fall."
Ren didn't hesitate.
He took her hand.
And together—
They stepped through the broken frame.
The world behind the mirror cracked.
Screamed.
Shattered.